Like a ripe and shiny apple on a tree, just out of reach, awaits the prize the St. Aloysius Lady Flashes covet — a rematch with Madison-St. Joseph in the Class 1A-2A-3A North State championship game.

First, however, there’s one small matter to take care of.

St. Al hosts South Pontotoc in a second-round playoff game today at 1 p.m. The winner advances to face either St. Joe or the Mississippi School of Math and Sciences — St. Joe is a heavy favorite — on Tuesday.

That match with a team that beat St. Al twice this season and beat it in last year’s North final is a temptation the Lady Flashes are trying to ignore this afternoon.

“Everybody’s in the playoffs for a reason. We can’t go to the next round until we win this one,” St. Al coach Suzie Channell said. “We’re having fun practicing, but we know there’s still goals to achieve.”

St. Al (9-9-1) won its first-round game 4-1 over Philadelphia, the latest achievement in a remarkable year. After losing nine seniors from the 2009-10 squad that reached the semifinals, there was some doubt the school would even be able to field a team this season.

Channell, in her first season as coach, and a roster that has no seniors, two juniors and a seventh- and eighth-grader playing key roles in the offensive attack have turned a rebuilding program into a championship contender.

“It’s a whole different team, a whole new experience,” said junior Riley Griffith, the team’s leading scorer and one of the few returning players from last season. “We’ve just grown as a team and made our way to the playoffs again.”

With so many players gaining their first playoff experience, it almost seems fitting that the Lady Flashes will be flying blind into today’s game.

South Pontotoc’s 7-1, first-round victory over Winona wasn’t played until Thursday because of wintry weather in North Mississippi. That left little time for Channell to gather a scouting report beyond surveying the scores leading to the Lady Cougars’ impressive 10-1 record.

“It could be good and it could be bad,” Channell said of not knowing a lot about her opponent. “We went into Philadelphia confident because we’d beaten them before, yet it was 1-0 at halftime. I should be able to tell within the first 10 minutes or so which one it is.”